Impacts
by agentM40
Summary: The Ace-Ops cope with everything that's happened. Mainly the the death of Clover and their defeat by team RWBY Trigger warning for overworking and vomiting (There is now a sequel in the making. The first chapter [at least] is out by now)


_**[If you've read my other story on here (Magnetic Regalia), I DO intend on finishing that. Well, actually I plan on starting over and redoing it entirely. My skills as a writer have improved exponentially since writing that. I hope you enjoy this story too. Also, if you haven't read it and might want to check it out, it's a crossover, so you CAN, but you should watch Noragami first. Also it's not good.]**_

Clover's dead

Well shit.

She was quick to be placed in his newly open position. It felt almost dirty somehow. She's just filling a void now. She became determined to, instead of take up his role as leader, take up a different place. It was still as leader, but if your father dies, you don't think of your mother as someone who's picking up a role. She's still your mother in the same way she always was. She just has more responsibilities now.

She never really got close to Clover. She couldn't afford to. None of them could. Elm and Vine seemed to have gotten closer than when they'd initially joined, and as newly appointed leader, and she made sure to nip that in the bud. If either of them died, she couldn't have the other falling to pieces as they failed to do their jobs as a consequence. She made sure, during training, that they were more separate than they had been before. Sure, they had been picked to perfectly compliment each other. That was the whole point. This would help them warm up fighting otherwise anyway. They wouldn't always be able to rely on each other during fights. They needed to be the best after all. Their jobs called for it. Unfortunately...

How had team RWBY beaten them? Team RWBY? The team that never seemed to grasp the weight of their responsibilities. Instead, playing and joking like school children. Actually, wait. They were school children! How did they manage to get the upper hand? Oh right.

"_Then you trained us_."

Seriously, fuck team RWBY. They'd just need to train harder. They could handle it. They'd been slacking off since they were first selected as the best. And they were the best. Were...

"_You were._"

**Shut up!**

They are the best. They next time they encountered team RWBY—and they _would_ meet again— They would annihilate them. They had to.

* * *

Clover died. Apparently.

Goddammit. This wasn't supposed to happen. Even after what team RWBY did to them, she found it hard to believe that Qrow would kill him. The two of them seemed to get along pretty well. They were all the same. Traitors. Cowards. Degenerates. It didn't take long to accept what Qrow had done, and after finally doing that, wondered why she ever doubted. Of course he would. He was only loyal to himself, just as team RWBY had been.

She wasn't there when it happened, but she found herself mentally scolding Clover. He should have just let Qrow go. They could have gotten him some other time. That hard head was always so sure he could handle anything. He was too used to the luck. The luck that Qrow took away from him. Asshole.

Just like his niece. That bitch. Using her insecurities to control her. Well, not an insecurity. It wasn't true. It wasn't

"_They're just following orders now_."

How dare she. How **dare** she make such accusations. Why did she care anyway. They weren't true. She simply agreed with Ironwood's decision. Right? Yes. Obviously. Why are you even questioning that? That's a terrible thing to question. That's insulting to Ironwoods leadership skills. He was a good leader too. He'd gotten two seats on the council after all. Even if that was threatened. He'd had both, and that was enough proof of his leadership skills for anyone.

Unless you were a bias coward. Of course team RWBY would think Ironwood's decision was wrong. They were teenagers. They think they're better than everyone, and don't have the experience or development to make tough decisions correctly. Teenagers. They thought they could get away with anything. They did, too. They got away with it, and they—the ops—let them.

Elm found herself glad that Harriet came to her senses and realized how much they'd all been slacking. Elm only wished either of them had realized before that confrontation. They were so proud of being the best, while RWBY, and JNPR for that matter, were solely focused on getting better. That needed to change soon.

Harriet also started edging her and Vine from each other. At first it simply confused her, before she figured out why. She'd gotten attached. That could only end badly. This was for the best.

* * *

Clover had died.

Well, that would certainly complicate things for a while. They'd all need to readjust to the new situation. Harriet being leader, for one thing. That was the biggest thing. She'd seemed to be actively trying to run things differently. He couldn't blame her. They'd lost under Clover's leadership, after all.

They held a small memorial, but despite it's name it wasn't memorable at all. The others would probably barely even acknowledge it ever happened, and the only reason _he_ did, was because he did the eulogy. It was mostly unspoken that vine would obviously do this. He'd always been the best with words. He was quick, simple, to the point, and kept to the facts. This left for a very short eulogy, however.

"_Clover was our leader. He kept our morals up, which may have been the most important thing at the time. It is an endeavor we must continue, now more than ever_."

Keeping morals up was important. It kept them from giving up, and kept grimm away—more than otherwise at least.

He found Harriet separating Elm and him. He wondered why. Their semblances perfectly complimented each other's. It didn't make sense to separate them. Maybe she wanted them to be able to work more independently. Adapting to that shouldn't be too difficult. He'd always been one to keep to himself. Usually not in the physical sense of not having someone to watch his six, but he supposed he could apply his solitude as a person to his output as a huntsman. She'd gotten him to fight side by side with her, or Marrow on occasion. He found she was doing a good job. His fighting was certainly more versatile now, than ever.

Harriet had taken to stretching their schedule. That is to say, not allowing it to stay consistent. She might wake everyone up a few hours earlier than usual, or moving the time they had to eat lunch to later in the day (relative to when they started training). Most days she would leave a specific amount of hours before stopping to break, but she would never have them train too long before giving them a break. He thought her new techniques helpful. She was correct in that they needed to be better. If they'd been beaten so easily, how could they say they were worthy of their positions.

He had been taken down by an explosion. Such an inelegant form of weapon. No room for precision. Of course it would have taken him down, in that case. They never should have offered to have their weapons updated. That's what took them down. They'd gone rampant with all their newly found power, not taking time to calculate. It followed the concepts of the best swordsman.

'_The best swordsman doesn't fear the second best. He fears the worst, because he doesn't know what the idiot is going to do_.'

Team RWBY was far from comprised of the worst fighters, of course, but they were reckless. He'd been unconscious for most of the conflict, but seeing just how demolished the floor was when he woke up was enough evidence to draw that conclusion. If they ever encountered each other again, there would be no knowing who would win the second round. Hopefully the extra training would make a difference, but it might not, given how they won the first time

* * *

Clover had died.

Clover died.

Clover's dead.

Clover... _is_ dead.

He repeated it over and over in his head, but it wouldn't sink it. No. It did. He just didn't care-but he wanted to. He'd looked up to Clover, and they'd spent every day with each other (as well as the other ops) since he joined, so why didn't he feel anything knowing that Clover had died- that Clover is dead?

No, he knew why. He didn't really know Clover. He'd never been allowed to. The ace ops are—very specifically—not friends. Still, he should have tried. He didn't know who Clover was, and now he'd never get the chance to have ever known him. It was like that saying.

'_Better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all_."

He should have worked towards knowing them, even if the rest of them tried not to. It wasn't even an official rule, it was generally accepted to be a bad idea to try to get close, but he had never agreed with it. He should have done something about it. Clover deserved more than to be remembered as someone who did a job. He deserved more than Vine's sorry excuse of a eulogy. He didn't know Clover, but nobody deserved that little.

Harriet was appointed leader, and she was driven. She pushed them harder than Clover ever had.

"_We've all been slacking since we first joined. We need to work our way back to our skill level back when we first joined_."

She seemed to have forgotten that he had just gotten here. He joined only weeks before team RWBY even showed up. He didn't have time to start believing that he was one of the bests anyway. To start slacking.

Sometimes she would wake everyone up at three AM to start their training. Two hours earlier than most days. On those days he didn't have time to eat breakfast. He _always_ had less time to eat than the others, as was the one elected to go down to Qrow's containment cell and bring him food, while the general worked on deciding what to do with him. Something the general seemed to be putting off for as long as possible. As a fraction of his eating time was dedicated to bringing Qrow his meal in the morning his own time was taken, and in early mornings he was sluggish, and would need to go directly to the training room in order to show up on time, which was the highest priority.

Some of those days he would need to convince Harriet to let him use the restroom sometime in the middle of training. She was always hard to convince. She was prone to telling him he should have gone before training, and each time he asked she got more frustrated that he hadn't. He always wore her down enough, and just in time to hide his vomit. You're really not supposed to train so rigorously without having eaten _anything_. The next two meals of the day, he would need to gorge himself to keep himself satiated.

"_What's the point of all this training if your just going to put dead weight back on_?"

That one stung a little. Not enough to stop, but after that, he thought about it any time he ate anything. Once on a three AM run to give Qrow his breakfast he found himself giving into temptation and taking some things from the tray, eating it on his way to the training room. If Qrow ever noticed he had less food that day, he didn't say anything. Sometimes Qrow would try to initiate a conversation, for some reason. It was weird. Why would Qrow want to have anything to do with him? After everything that happened? Then again, he was probably just trying to get something out of him. Information or something. That made sense.

He wanted to hate Qrow, and the rest, but he couldn't. He liked them. They'd only ever been nice to him. Excluding their last encounter. On one of the first days Jaune had given him his coffee, and Ruby had let him try something he'd wanted to do ever since he'd met Harriet. She carried him on her back as she went as fast as she could. Harriet had never let him try, but sometimes Ruby would offer him a trip for no reason other than that she saw him looking a _little_ bit bummed out. He wondered what team RWBY or JNR would say or do if they saw him now. He was definitely less happy than he was, just a week ago.

They'd left though. They'd abandoned them. He thinks? Why is everything so confusing? They betrayed Ironwood and had beaten them. Who's surprised, really? Team RWBY all had the same goal. They all knew exactly what they wanted, and they all agreed on that. They all believed in the same goal. Harriet was willing to kill. He didn't want that. He didn't want any of this. He wanted to go down to Mantle, find his mom, and make sure she was ok.

...

Okay.

Originally he was going to use an airship, but he'd get caught, and brought straight back pretty fast. So he walked to the edge of Atlas and fell. It'd be easier to land than back in the tundra. Mantle had buildings, which are great for slowing your fall. After finding out that she was fine, he wondered if he could find team RWBY down here. Why not stick around and find out?

_**[My main place for consuming fanfiction anymore is archiveofourown, but since I have something else posted on here from before I figured 'Eh, why not?']**_


End file.
